Sustainable Australia candidate owns Fake Greens nut

Earlier this year I labelled The Greens a fake environmental party because of their support for mass immigration and a ‘Big Australia’.

My growing frustration about The Greens has come about because for nearly 20 years they have failed to utter a word in protest as the federal government, under both the Coalition and Labor, massively ramped-up Australia’s permanent migration intake from 80,000 at the turn of the century to 200,000 currently (see next chart).

It is this increase in the permanent migration intake which has driven the huge acceleration in Australia’s population growth, which is projected to continue for decades into the future (see next chart).

Rather than protest Australia’s world-beating population growth, The Greens stood by silently as Australia’s population surged nearly 30% over the past 19 years, which has placed undue strain on Australia’s environment – supposedly The Greens’ core concern. Indeed, in March, the latest federal government’s State of the Environment report revealed that Australia’s natural environment is being placed under acute strain as Australia’s population grows out of control.

These environmental concerns come on top of the deleterious impacts mass immigration is having on living standards in the big cities – such as packed trains, worsening traffic congestion, and deteriorating housing affordability.

It wasn’t always like this. As documented in Green Left Weekly in 1998, fears of being associated with Pauline Hanson’s “racist” and “xenophobic” views caused The Greens to abandon their policy of “stabilising” Australia’s population and “a zero net migration policy” to one of opposing cuts to immigration – hence their deafening silence as Australia’s population boomed!

On Monday, NSW Greens senator, Lee Rhiannon, gave an interview with 2GB’s Michael McLaren, whereby she defended the Green’s support of a Big Australia:

Michael McLaren: “In the housing issue, supply and demand, if you bring down demand obviously prices come down. But The Greens seem very reluctant to advocate what I would argue is a sensible measure there. And of course the more people that come in, the more wilderness needs to be bulldozed to put houses on. Now, why don’t The Greens, broadly speaking, advocate less immigration per year. We are running at 200,000. Noone’s saying zero. But why not, say, 70,000 or 80,000 per year? It would seem an environmental policy as much as a social policy, would it not”?

Lee Rhiannon: “Look, I’ve certainly heard those arguments and I’ve had these discussions many times. But we certainly don’t need to be bulldozing the land in terms of more clearing to house people.

Michael McLaren: “Where do they go, then?”

Lee Rhiannon: “Well medium density is what’s already happening in parts of our big cities. And that’s what we need to be developing.

Michael McLaren: “But people in Sydney and Melbourne don’t like that. I mean the reason that so many people want to come and live here is because of the suburban nature, the quality of life, the backyard, the front yard, the great place to bring up the kids. That’s Australia. And that’s a wonderfully successful model”.

Lee Rhiannon: “Although, there’s a lot of studies now showing for young people that they would prefer to live in medium density so that they can live closer to the city in a smaller apartment, but they have got facilities around them. Remember, the number of young people buying cars these days is just plummeting because they live in areas where they can access what they are interested in, the entertainment, and hopefully work for them. And there’s a whole different lifestyle developing”.

So there you have it. Apparently, Sydney and Melbourne can squeeze 3-4 million more people into the existing urban footprint over the next 40 years without harming the Australian environment, quality of life, or housing affordability (which Rhiannon incessantly whinged about earlier in the interview). The Greens are clearly delusional.

Rhiannon’s claim that people are shying away from cars because of urban consolidation is also complete rubbish. The 2016 Census revealed that vehicle registrations have almost perfectly matched population growth. Who would have thought: more people means more cars on the road (as well as pollution and congestion).

What few people realise is that under The Greens’ immigration policy, Australia would see its population hit a massive 43 million by 2060 – well over double the 19 million population that existed when The Greens abandoned its stable population policy in 1998!

Let me explain.

One year ago, The Greens announced a plan to massively increase Australia’s humanitarian migrant intake without providing any offsets to Australia’s current permanent migrant intake of 200,000 (full policy announcement below):

The Australian Greens have unveiled a bold yet fiscally responsible vision to harness the nation building capacity that people seeking asylum represent, ahead of the 2016 Federal Election.

By closing the detention camps on Manus Island and Nauru while welcoming 50,000 people seeking asylum per year, which includes 40,000 under the humanitarian intake and 10,000 under a new ‘Skilled Refugee’ programme, the plan would create a safe way for people in our region to seek asylum in Australia.

“Australia doesn’t need to respond to people seeking our protection by turning our backs or locking them up – there is a better way ,” said Australian Greens Leader, Dr Richard Di Natale.

“Today the Greens are announcing a vision that would welcome a record number of people to live in safety in our community every year and recognise the contribution refugees have made to this country over generations and will continue to make.

“Our bold plan would not only welcome 50,000 people per year and offer a safe way for people to seek asylum in Australia, it would also save the budget $160 million over the next four years,” Di Natale said.

“For too long, the national political debate has portrayed migrants and people seeking asylum as a problem instead of an opportunity,” Greens’ immigration spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“By offering 10,000 ‘Skilled Refugee’ places per year through the skilled migration pathway, we will be helping to save lives while letting those very same people contribute to the future prosperity of our economy.

“Modern Australia was built by generations of hardworking, self-started people who came to our country in search of a better life. People want to protect their families and to give their children access to an education and a life free of violence. We should be allowing them to get on and do that in Australia.

“Using the savings from closing the offshore detention camps to build a genuine regional solution, which assesses people’s claims for asylum where they are before flying them to Australia safely, will save thousands of lives.

“We need to get children out of immigration detention, including those who are on Nauru, and allow people to get on with rebuilding their lives in safety.

“The government’s cruelty towards people seeking asylum has gone on for too long. It’s time we treated others the way we would want to be treated and let them contribute to the future of our nation.”

As shown in the first chart above, Australia’s current permanent migrant intake is 200,000, comprising 186,000 under the non-humanitarian intake and 14,000 under the humanitarian intake.

Under The Greens’ plan, Australia’s permanent migrant intake would increase to 236,000 a year.

According to The Productivity Commission’s recent Migrant Intake Australia report, Australia’s population would hit 27 million by 2060 under zero Net Overseas Migration (The Greens’ old policy), 41 million under 200,000 Net Overseas Migration (the current settings), and roughly 43 million under 236,000 Net Overseas Migration (see below chart).

Since The Greens have advocated raising Australia’s already turbo-charged immigration intake, it would appear that The Greens support a very ‘Big Australia’.

This is why I view the The Greens as a fake environmental party that is hellbent on destroying the Australian environment and incumbent residents’ living standards via never-ending mass immigration and rapid population growth.

There is, of course, a way for The Greens to once again become a genuine “green” party as well as ensuring social justice concerns are met: argue to increase Australia’s humanitarian intake (currently 14,000 per year) while massively cutting Australia’s economic intake (currently around 190,000 people per year). This way The Greens could achieve both goals: significantly reducing population growth and saving the environment while also being a good and caring global citizen. After all, when it comes to protecting the environment, it is the overall numbers that matter, not how the migrants come.

As a comparison to the Fake Greens, check out the below fantastic interview on 2GB with Wesley Folitarik, Sustainable Australia’s candidate for Bennelong. This is what a true environmental party looks like:

Comments

Their disallowance motion of the recent visa application fraud legislation this week shows they dont give a fk. Sure, the mistake provisions were about flawed, but standing in the way of much needed reform to the visa program and rampant rorting by these wankers just shows they are just open borders as the Liblabs.

We need to break the naive milennials who vote for these idiots out of their trance. Keep chipping away MB.

Issue is MSM largely,
It seems no-one can build a logical campaign that hooks the average Australian and builds momentium to cause Mr Average to standup and the pollies to change their ways.
There is no bigger issue effecting the average Australian than high immigration, yet the average person is still somewhat unaware

Alternatively, they are aware but have been carpet-bombed, napalmed and blitzkrieged with cries of “racist” if questioning the immigration rate.
Easier to keep one’s head down and mouth shut in that case.
But whatever narrative works.

It has been my observation that the most frequent users of the word “racist” are the ones (usually pre-emptively) claiming that’s how they are described. Probably outnumbers the times someone actually gets called racist by at least ten to one.

Nah, it’s been thirty years of progressive Left indoctrination from the education system that’s brainwashed the young.
Those insatiable zealots supporting the illegal maritime arrivals are mostly the spawn of that system.

I’m as frustrated as anyone that there isn’t more reasoned debate about non-humanitarian immigration, but I also get frustrated with this BS about it being an environmental issue.

Yes, population growth in Australia is an environmental issue, but it’s a very minor one.

Have you ever looked at Google Earth? Have you noticed what proportion of Australia’s environment is concreted over as cities? SFA. You could double the footprint of our cities and it would still be SFA.

Have you ever calculated what proportion of our water extraction is for urban use? Again, SFA. We’ve got about 2.5TL of storage for Sydney and 2TL for Melbourne, whereas we’ve got about 20TL in large dams for the Murray Darling Basin alone.

The biggest environmental threats are habitat destruction from land clearing and water extraction (primarily agriculture); native forest clearing for timber or pulp; and feral species (animals and plants). Mining is also up there in some cases.

All of these are export industries – it doesn’t matter if we’ve got 10 million people or 50 million people, these industries would push the environment just as hard. (cue – someone to argue that we only need to export to balance our trade with imports supplied to a greater population, hence if we had less population then farmers would choose to leave half their paddocks fallow and miners would choose to leave half their minerals in the ground. A ridiculous argument).

I get grumpy because the argument that reducing immigration is some environmental panacea is not just ignorant – it’s also destructive. It diverts attention from the real issues and lets them off the hook, continuing their irreversible environmental harm. Yes, I’m calling the way you present your immigration obsession environmentally destructive.

I’m looking forward to the day that we start reasoned conversation about macroeconomics again.

“I also get frustrated with this BS about it being an environmental issue.

Yes, population growth in Australia is an environmental issue, but it’s a very minor one”.

You are joking, right? Land clearing to make way for houses is only on part of the issue. What about pollution (e.g. all those extra cars or energy use)? Where do you think our food and energy comes from (it sure ain’t the cities)? What about landfill from all of the extra people?

The government’s own State of the Environment report clearly pinned the blame on population growth.

How degraded would Australia’s natural environment be without all the human interference? By extension, doubling the population under a ‘Big Australia’ program obviously adds massively to these pressures.

You are the deluded one here. It’s ignorant comments like yours that make me grumpy.

How’s the government debt of the PIIGS going at the moment? Have they paid it off yet? Are global bond markets worried about it?

How’s the Nikkei in Japan? Is it just another bubble, or have the Japanese finally got a sustainable future growth trajectory? If they do, what can we learn from them?

How is the American shale oil industry going at the moment, and how is this affecting OPEC?

How is our ageing population going to affect asset valuation. I read one story on MB some years ago suggesting the PE of investments would fall to a new mean of around 8X in decades to come as everyone will need cash instead. (This was before quantitive easing.)

And for fun, it’s always good to expose a “happy new homeowner” as a real-estate agent participating in multiple advertorials.

Great macroeconomic topics explained in an educational and insightful way have been largely neglected in favour of repeatedly shouting through the megaphone “STOP IMMIGRATION”.

I kind of agree in that there are significant environmental issues – probably the majority of them – that are almost entirely independent of population growth (be it natural or immigration). Most of the other parties have pretty dismal history (to say the least) and policies (if they have any at all) around these, which is why I think the blanket conclusion that the Greens have no interest in protecting the environment so ridiculous.

However, that said, there’s also things driven by population growth. Energy consumption, fuel consumption (and accompanying air pollution) not only from more cars, but also more service vehicles and increased congestion, increasing needs for potable water near cities (that subsequently drive environmentally bad solutions like desalination), garbage disposal (and the pollution caused by littering), etc.

Stopping/slowing population growth is not even close to the environmental panacea it’s implied to be here, but it’s a good idea. The economic argument against immigration is infinitely stronger than the environmental one.

“Stopping/slowing population growth is not even close to the environmental panacea it’s implied to be here”.

We’ve never claimed it was a “panacea”. But stopping the population from increasing by a Canberra every year would obviously take great pressure off the environment. To claim otherwise, as Tassie Tom (and The Greens) has done, is ridiculous.

Mmmmm. You certainly present it as if it were one of the biggest environmental problems we face. 🙂

Tassie Tom’s point is that, by the numbers, population growth is not a significant contributor to environmental degradation, which mostly centres around things like land clearing, agriculture, industrial pollution, etc. This is why your question above about “how degraded would the natural environment be with fewer people” is a bit disingenuous – the vast majority of human-caused degradation isn’t happening because of how many of us [in Australia] there are.

That’s not saying population growth doesn’t contribute, simply that there are a lot of other things that contribute a lot more, and which would continue to do so even if immigration stopped and half the population disappeared overnight. So from a purely environmentalist perspective, it’s not a first-order issue.

The argument being presented is that you shouldn’t even hold your nose and vote Green, since the Greens are actively seeking to cause environmental destruction because of their lack of policy on reducing population growth. Is that the position you are agreeing with ? Because all I’m doing is saying the situation is a bit more complex.

No Smithy, the argument is that The Greens are hypocritical in supporting mass immigration and an even bigger Australia. They have no right to call themselves a “green” party. It is a fake label. Sustainable Australia, by contrast, lives by its name.

As I’ve stated here numerous times, I vote SAP whenever possible. I don’t disagree with your criticism of the Greens not seeking a better population growth policy, I’ve echoed it multiple times. I disagree with the implication that it makes every other aspect of their environmental policy irrelevant (or “hypocritical”, if you prefer), when the simple fact is the most severe environmental damage comes from activities that are almost completely independent of Australia’s population.

I’m not looking for one party to rule the country. I’m looking for several of them to sit in Government and compromise based on their individual policies. Hence why I support the Greens for the 90%-odd of their policies I do agree with rather than toss them aside because of the 10% I don’t.

the population growth of industrialised western states is an extremely critical environmental issue. the most instructive means to clarify this to people is the united states: if america had not enormously expanded its migratory intake and opted to stabilise it’s population post 1970, it’d have only about 180m people today. compared to now, where it is at about 325+ million people. imagine a global environment with that many fewer americans – this is seriously huge stuff.

Australia leads the world in animal extinction rates.
Since colonisation, about 75% of Australia’s native bushland/forest has been cleared.
For about 20 years, more water was taken out of the Murray Darling basin than went in, so that the river stopped flowing into the sea for about 12 years, until two massive cyclones replenished the basin.
Looking at Google Earth does not tell much. Have a look at the Sahara.
All mainland Capitals now rely in desalination to support water supply in dry periods.
Population growth, tubo-charged by ever more consumptive technologies is the main cause of environmental degradation and climate change. What other factors do you think are important?

Animal extinction: land clearing and feral species – completely independent of population. We’re about to lose the orange-bellied parrot – how much urban sprawl is impacting their habitat in the Florentine and Weld valleys?

Native bushland/ forest clearing: Agriculture businesses and timber companies – completely independent of population. So, maybe we might export 70% of our agricultural production instead of 80% because we’re consuming a bit more domestically. What was our population in 1910 when we cut down our last mature Red Cedar?

Desalination: True, but desalination has actually protected further exploitation of the environment (waterways) from further population growth.

Climate change: Does it matter if the population increase and consumption is here or there? It probably does for our 14,000 humanitarian intake, probably not much for our 200,000 or so non-humanitarian intake. Most of them would probably have similar consumption producing similar (or more) emissions in their home country as they do here.

Again – I have big problems with our massive non-humanitarian intake – it beats down workers wages, it beats down workers conditions even more, it is one of many factors keeping our house prices high which is the single major factor causing born wealth entrenchment at the expense of social mobility, and therefore increasing our rich-poor divide and everything that goes along with it. But I only have a small problem with it from an environmental perspective.

It is a big problem and it should be bread-and-butter for the “party for the workers” – the Labor Party, and they should be railing against it. But the unions are all superannuation fund managers these days and want to keep the asset bubbles going, and the banks and corporations have their grubby fingers inside the Labor party machine just as much as they do inside the Liberal party machine.

“Animal extinction: land clearing and feral species – completely independent of population. We’re about to lose the orange-bellied parrot – how much urban sprawl is impacting their habitat in the Florentine and Weld valleys?”

Do you think there might be other species that are becoming extinct due to land clearing, or human induced circumstances that favour say foxes over native species? I’m out you’re a fking idiot.

Expand your arguement Ric.
Population is an environmental problem world wide.
But it’s OK , Trump is on it. He has started the depopulation of the Middle East, by declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

Correct it is a WW problem. Nothing is solved globally by filling Australia. There’s 90m EXTRA people on earth every year. We cannot fix that. The best we can do is not destroy Australia and encourage those imbeciles the UN to make population control their number one priority. Before you say anything smith, don’t bother. According to UN’s own figures, there’s 60m unwanted babies every year. There’s a start. Education and contraception.

Tassie Tom says that they would happen anyway. It is true that a fair few rich and powerful people are benefiting, but such destructive processes have been stopped in the past. We no longer farm cotton with slaves, have little children working down coal mines, allow factories to pollute unchecked, allow whole species to be hunted to extinction, etc. It is much easier to deal with a problem that is being caused by ignorance or a relatively few greedy and amoral people than it is to stop activities that are meeting the basic needs of a big population.

This is essentially the trap that destroyed the Sumerian city states. They irrigated heavily with river water and brought up salt to the surfaces of their fields. From quite early on, they had to stop growing wheat and switch to the more salt tolerant barley. Eventually the situation got so bad that barley yields were plummeting as well. They could have reversed the situation by flooding the land or leaving it fallow and removing salt-tolerant weeds. This would have cut production, however, on which a big population was dependent. It ended in collapse. See David Montgomery’s book “Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations”.

No, his point is whether they continue, increase, or decrease, is independent of population growth.

Ironically, Ric’s argument that with fewer people we’ll all be richer, is built on the assumption that there is no connection between immigration and the land clearing, etc, that is driven by the exports responsible for making us rich(er).

“his point is whether they continue, increase, or decrease, is independent of population growth”

A small population made up of collectively reasonable people, that already have far more than they could need will vote against it.

“with fewer people we’ll all be richer”

When did I say that? We have more than we need for the number of us there are.

Tassie Tom says that they would happen anyway.

“with fewer people we’ll all be richer, is built on the assumption that there is no connection between immigration and the land clearing, etc, that is driven by the exports responsible for making us rich(er)”

Wrong. Even if you’re claiming this is true for global population growth it’s still wrong. Look where all the population growth is coming from, they don’t have the ability to consume like we do. Maybe they will one day, maybe.

And if you’re claiming this is true for the domestic market – and it reads like you are – just wait until you hear about this thing the miners and farmers have been doing, wait for it, they sell good to overseas markets. I know, crazy, right? Would you believe that farmers and miners export more product than they sell domestically, by a large margin, too.

“they don’t have the ability to consume like we do. Maybe they will one day, maybe.”

It screams to me, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. The world is dying with a fraction of the population living well. If we doubled the consumption of westerners with more westerners, we’d all be long dead.

I think that more people need to join the dots.
To divorce deforestation, land clearing, lack of freshwater and loss of native habitat from population growth is realy head in the sand stuff. All these impacts and more are driven by population growth and now humans are getting into the rats in a cage stage where social fabric breaks down under the population induced scarcity, hunger and subsequent conflict that arrises from too many rats in that cage.

DR & TT,
So that’s it? We cannot do anything at all from Australia, so keep chopping trees down and cramming folks into a finite environment? Makes sense to me – not! Don’t we want to leave the planet to those who follow in as good or better condition than when we were born? I do.
Australia can lead by example, just as NZ has done by making sure that women on welfare have voluntary, reversible and free contraception access while also lowering immigration numbers. Australian aid could be better targeted on this.
Trees are cut down in Tassie for what TT? Where does the lumber and woodchip go?
A former head of the WWF stated that the organisation has failed to stop any animal from becoming extinct and that it would have been more successful if it had invested all the money it ever raised on providing access to family planning.

Have you never heard of the ‘ecological footprint’? That’s all the land-use that is required to keep an economy afloat. Look up some diagrams for it in a search engine. The more people, the more energy and the more land required. Also, have you not noticed that Australia is 70% arid composed of 40% rangelands and 30% hot desert? We are like an atoll, only with sand in the middle instead of a volcano. How do people miss this information?

Thanks for the article and the link Leith. That was a brilliant interview with the Sustainable Australia bloke, both he and the interviewer nailed it in my view. I’ve not heard Michael McLaren before, stylistically he sounds a fair bit like Alan Jones but from the two interviews from the article in substance he seems much different.

Lee Rhiannon: “Although, there’s a lot of studies now showing for young people that they would prefer to live in medium density so that they can live closer to the city in a smaller apartment, but they have got facilities around them.

Translation: “It’s fine to crush load our cities because millennials would rather live in an apartment than a house…”

Even if that was the case, when did conversation about population growth become purely about the housing preferences of young people?

The Greens are paid up globalists and never address the sustainability issues. Build it all offshore, but care not for the carbon emitted doing that. They desire power to tell us all to do as they say, not as they do. I’m a sustainability advocate, but in their eyes i’m probably not fit to make any comments as it not from their playbook. They get lots of votes, and may one day be the new Labour. We’ll need to go to bed in high vis I expect.

Its very simple really.
Everyone has a mortgage, even the people comprising the Greens. I’m sure old Lee Rhiannon is up to her eyeballs in it.

After taking on a simply enormous debt mountain and gearing up to repay it over half a lifetime (or more. Or never), they certainly don’t want that sacrifice to be all for naught if house prices come down.

Also consider the fact that everyone knows (or certainly should know) that Australia’s portion of the global debt bubble is being held up only by importing demand. It is completely obvious. Our locals have long cast themselves onto the pike of debt, and the new population casts itself onto the pike of debt not long after they set foot on our soil.

The multi-trillion dollar debt bubble, secured against houses we say are worth whatever the latest ridiculously-sized pile of debt that was plonked onto them, is the reason that everything is going to hell in a handbasket. If you put it all into perspective, and look at the whole mess through the lens of desperate, indebted people on the brink of insanity and bankruptcy, it all makes perfect sense why things are the way they are.

@JJF, “Everyone has a mortgage, even the people comprising the Greens.”

Erm, no. There is a rising class of working poor like myself on “only” around 100K (this is criminal that 100K can remotely be a working poor type of salary), who due to the cost of renting, transport and electricity cannot save fast enough to get into the market before prices spiral away from the amount saved.

Also, MOST home owners paid nowhere near what first home buyers have been paying over the past 3 years. Even in Sydney, many areas have doubled in price in 5 years. Not as many people will be actually hurt as you think. MOST non-investors will merely see their gains eroded. Since your roof is your roof, its value is not necessarily important as an asset class; it is merely your paid roof. If you want a larger roof later, and your current roof’s price went down, that’s ok as the larger roof’s price will have gone down as well, etc.

people in units don’t use more energy – that is fake study done comparing energy consumption by wealthy residents of expensive Chicago condos vs. normal people in suburbs.
If study was controlled for things like income, lifestyle, building efficiency etc. results would be quite different and conclusion the opposite.

Maybe we should have a look into local utilities’ data on electricity and gas usage, and car usage.

No-one here seems to acknowledge that immigration isn’t actually creating more people. They are just moving from one country to another. Maybe the greens are taking a more global approach.
Wanting to limit immigration may not be racist, if it is not based on race, but it is selfish. I think it would be great to have less people in Australia, but if you look at it from the perspective of the people wanting to come here it is different.
I do support less immigration, but I’m not convinced it is ethical.

This is really a “take up the white man’s burden” sort of argument because it denies agency to people in poor countries. The last colonial powers left a long time ago. No one forced the world’s poor to quadruple or quintuple their population in 50 years, support corrupt and incompetent leaders, indulge in religious bigotry, etc. If anything, development should be easier for the latecomers than for the people who pioneered it. They know that development is possible and know what policies are needed to achieve it, from numerous examples in Europe, East Asia, etc. Furthermore, they can learn from our mistakes and leapfrog over obsolete dirty technology. Letting them use emigration as a safety valve just reduces pressure to fix the problems. Why are you telling us to take them in and not telling them to get their act together?

I doubt the individuals wanting to immigrate are any more responsible for their previous countries problems than I am responsible for any of the attractions of Australia. As for looking to East Asia for examples, isn’t that where most of the immigration is coming from?

Pretty much. Between our Governments invading countries, our corporations buying foreign Governments, and our religious nutcases spreading the idea that contraception is a sin, we’ve got most of the third world covered.

Immigration does create more people. It creates more fertility opportunities. Clans and tribes are largely endogamous with some exogamy. The higher the rate of exogamy (marrying outside your originating population) and the lower the degree of incest avoidance prescribed by kinship rules, the higher the rate of population growth, all other things being equal. You might find this site interesting; it explains the theory and the rules. https://candobetter.net/node/3197

demand for homes has nothing to do with house prices in Australia at the moment. Home prices have been surging in past decade or more because of high demand for houses and units as financial assets used to speculate for financial gains.

also rental market is clear indication that people (those who rent, young and immigrants) don’t want to (come and) live here because of the suburban nature, the quality of life, the backyard, the front yard, the great place to bring up the kids. If they really want that, house rents would be cheaper than unit rents, while reality is the opposite. Rent’s for houses in suburbs are much cheaper than rents for much smaller units near the city (also vacancy rates are higher)

The Greens are a party in favour of multiculturalism.
If the permanent immigration intake was 80% white, rather than the 80% non white as it is now, I’m quite certain the Greens would be screaming for cuts to the immigration program.
Given a choice between a big multicultural Australia and environmental destruction from the mass 3rd world immigration program, multiculturalism will win every time.